


Swaying in the wind

by MaryWinston



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death Eaters, Drama, Escape, F/F, F/M, Major Original Character(s), Mental Breakdown, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Muggle Culture, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Ravenclaw, References to Drugs, Sad and Happy, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Survival, Teenagers, Underage Smoking, Wizarding Wars (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryWinston/pseuds/MaryWinston
Summary: The wizarding world is in chaos. War is looming ahead. Sides are choosen. But where do those go that don't want to fight?Those that want to leave but aren't able to? Those that are still stuck in school? Those that aren't even adults yet? What do those do, that are pressured from their family to join one side? Those that got friends on both sides? Will they succumb to their decision? Will they fight? Will they flee? Will they sway in the wind, wherever it may go?This is the story of Mary Winston, a young teenage girl who tries to find her way in her world. She tried to stay neutral, she really did.
Kudos: 3





	1. Initium

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooooo …..this is my first fanfiction. Please be nice.  
> Please tell me if my spelling is off. Since English is my second language I am not confident in my spelling.  
> Also: Mary is NOT a Mary-Sue. She is a teenager who thinks she’s got the world all figured out.  
> I choose the name because I like the meaning of it. It means "sea of bitterness", "rebelliousness", and "wished for child" and will be quite fitting for the story.  
> Please enjoy.

The world is filled to the brim with wonder and potential. There is no point denying it. When you think there could be nothing new anymore, you ought to look more closely. You can discover small secrets, little details that give them away. When you look closely enough you could find a whole new world. A world filled with wonders which break every rule the mundane people have made up for the world with just one little aspect, magic.  
A world which is hidden away with their own culture, with their own beliefs, laws, schools, wonders and fairytales. Even though this hidden world seems like the fairytales which are popular in the mundane world it can be just as cruel as the normal world. There is racism towards those who came out of the mudane world with new magic in the world that is hidden. The humans and the other creatures could be just as selfish as the normal ones, the ones that witches and wizards called muggles. They had wars far more cruel than the ones who could be imagined by the normal kind. The arts of manipulating the minds, the ability to torture without leaving traces on the body, the gruesome battles where the battlefields were filled with blood that is vanished seconds before public can discover the blood bath. Whole families vanishing because they had a different state of mind. Persons controlled from the outside to kill and betray their friends with the simple indication “imperio”. Even though the last war was thirteen years in the past, the battle between the so called light and dark side continued. The following thirteen years were far more peaceful, it developed into a far more political battle. But this would soon change. The first sign to the public was on the 24th of June where a pupil of the Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry was murdered by the so called “dark” side.  
Cedric Diggorys’ death was the first official victim in the war that would follow.  
The students of Hogwarts were devastated. It had been a month and the normal routine had yet to reoccur. All habitants of Hogwarts were reminded of the hole in their students whenever a student started to cry again. Some of them simply cried, some of them simply went on with whatever they, some prepared for changes, some for revenge on whoever murdered their classmates but most simply let it go, they dismissed the situation as an accident even though they should know better.  
Some of them prepared for the changes, they searched for reasons, they planned on survival.  
All of them however were now assembled in the great hall for the feast on the end of the school year and the funeral eulogy of Cedric Diggory.  
The whole hall was decorated in black. The Hufflepuff table was filled with puffed red eyes and silent vows for revenge. The Gryffindor Table was pulsing with anger and disbelief. The Slytherin Table was the quietist, the students exchanged glances but did not speak. The Bulgarians further down the table seemed to exchange small bits of information. The Ravenclaw Table, all in blue, was filled with whispers and sobs. But if one would look closely there would be a girl lost in thought. Neither did she participate in the whispers nor did she sob. She didn’t plan revenge. She considered her future, her present and past. Her name is Mary Winston. 

„I would like you all, please, to stand, and raise your glasses, to Cedric Diggory. “

Mary Winston was selfish she knew that. She wasn‘t the one who would throw herself in front of a killing curse for mere strangers. She wasn‘t in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff for a reason. She was an Eagle and she was proud of it. Maybe sometimes too proud. When she looked back onto her sorting she was glad that the hat put her in the house of the Eagels. It was a close call between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Slytherin wasn‘t a bad or „evil“ house. You coulnd‘t say that about a whole house but it was certainly in the focus of everything. If she sported the Green and Silver colours on her tie it would be difficult for her plan to stand out of the spotlight.  
She would be hissed at, would be judged for her very breathing. Not only the student population judged them, no, the teachers as well. Even the teachers who preached about fairness and benevolence like the head of the lions or the badgers. They were far more prejudiced towards them and way faster to pull points off the Snakes as from any other house. It was no wonder why Snape always favoured them.  
Mary wasn‘t fond of the Head of Snakes and his teaching style, but she could respect him for his knowledge and his title as the youngest potions master ever. She knew without his blatant favouritism of the snakes, they would have a hard time to compete at all since the other teachers or worse the perfects would pull points of them for looking to suspicious or plotting something evil. It just wasn‘t fair. She knew that but she also knew that she wouldn‘t act onto that. Again she wasn‘t the person to do that. She wasn‘t the one who would fight battles for strangers which wouldn‘t benefit her. She wasn‘t a Lion.

In more than this aspect. The Lions tended to trust easily. They worshipped Dumbledore as the best Headmaster ever. At least this could be proven as wrong with facts. The Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry once the best school of them all, was now on the 7th rank over the world. It wasn‘t the worst position in this international ranking system but it steadily got worse. Of course it wasn‘t all Dumbledores fault, no part of this was the ministry's fault. Their ridiculous harsh bans of everything that is even a bit questionable. But of course it is “DARK”. Ridiculous is what it is. She had not ones in her 4 years of studying magic found a difference between light and dark magic. Of course some of the things were nasty but the most part was simply powerful. As example the Blood magic ban from 1803. Blood magic might be dangerous in some points but in the most aspects it was simply powerful. Of course it was sacrificial, of course it could be used to do harm to the person but you could do harm with everything. Hell you could use the Levitation-charm to throw someone into the air and let them die. The point is that not everything was justified to ban. This opinion alone would be her social death in Gryffindor. She wasn’t a saint, she had no white halo over her head.  
She had her own morals but they weren’t as pure as they were by the most of them around her. She hated the ones who seated themselves above them all because their morals were so “pure”. She hated it when they scolded them because they had different ideas of morals. But she knew that most of them would end up broken or dead because of them. She knew for a fact that this was even easier to die here for your morals. They could die for a simple scolding or their desperate attempts to stay with in the idea that everything can be solved with love. As a known fact every child which reached the age of eleven was given a deadly weapon. Of course most of them would only see it as a tool to make life easier, which had the nice side effect of blowing nice sparks.  
Of course not everybody. But a fare share of them. 

She knew she wasn’t the only one to think like that, she could see the calculating look on most the Slytherins, on a few pupils in Ravenclaw and certainly the bloodlust on a fare share of badgers. There was a rule in Hogwarts that you didn’t cross a badger because they can get vicious with their revenge. You could pull some pranks on them but if you really managed to harm one especially the first or second years, than by Merlin you could be happy if you simply died a mysterious death.

“Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort” This words yanked her out of her quiet musing. Her head shot up as the whole school broke out into outcries of fear or disbelief. She sharpened her eyes on the hall and tried to note all the faces with the respective reactions. Her friends or classmates, she wasn't really the social type, were interesting. Some of them where sheeps, scared and hunted in a corner by mere words, others had more interesting reactions.  
Some of them who belonged to old pureblood familys where hardly shaken by these news. They knew it before. Some looked pleased, even some halfbloods like her looked hardly sad at the prospect that he will return.

She wasn't dumb, as mentioned before she valued knowledge above everything. Maybe even as high as her own live. Well scratch that, she valued her live higher than knowledge. She knew that there must be more to the whole "dark" clause. It was a fact that winners wrote the books of history and most of them were hardly neutral. At least not those that were easily accessible. There was more to that. No government could possible build on pointless genocide, that was simply not possible without a revolution or protest from the population. The old families would never follow a mad man with a superiority complex, at least not those who stayed out of Azkaban and remained with their sanity intact. It was just not likely, they were not that dumb. In fact they were pretty smart. It needed cunning and intelligence to remain in power or be a puppeteer in the background. Even when they were accused of murder or anything equal as bad they got out and even stayed in power! How the hell could those people follow a mad man without a plan?  
The economy would break down without the menial workers. The muggleborns were at least useful, of course they brought the risk of exposure to mundane world with them but they were needed.  
She also noticed how Voldemort seemed to be the only one to make a move to integrate the magical creatures. He took a step to the werewolves, promised them rights, was against the restriction of knowledge, of course it could all have been propaganda but who knows? The “good” and light wizards had their time to make a move to equality but they didn’t. Dumbledore could have taken the lead and helped along in the process to an equal and fair world. He didn’t.  
And now it seemed he was on and about to make a speech for his side of the war using the grief of the students body to push them into the “right” direction.

“The Ministry of Magic,” Dumbledore continued, the next point that would make anybody cringe who had a sense of fairness. It was corrupt in his very form. Yeah that was the height of discrimination against everybody who wasn’t pure. You were looked at as if you would be something that sticks under their shoe if you had even a bit of creature blood in your veins.  
“...pretend that Cedric died as the result of an accident, or some sort of blunder of his own, is an insult to his memory.” There it was again, if it would follow further with that, the students in particular the younger years would feel guilty to say anything that would dishonour the dead Diggory. It was somehow an effective guilt trip. One thing you must say about Dumbledore that he was certainly a good manipulator. He played the eccentric grandfatherly Headmaster who was a bit cracked in the head well. He played to be an authoritative figure who you could trust, after all he was a humble old man with a big heart for his Students. But for her own mind it was a bit overdone. He was the one who defeated a dark lord in his youth. And one things she new was that breaniacs minds were rarely idle. This all screamed a well played role. It practically jumped in her face that this demeanor was at least partly fake. And who needed to do something like that? Had he done something bad? Was this whole thing to be simply trustworthy? She had no real information that could confirm anything but she knew that the world wasn’t as Black and White as she seemed. Was Dumbledore really as “good”? Voldemort really as “bad”? Either way if she could, she would simply stay in the shadow, live her life before it came to a short end in the upcoming war just because she was foolish enough to be at the front of it. She loved her life, her idle little life. It would be wrecked by the war if she came to close to it. There was no way that it would stay peacefull if they came upon her, her who practised curses, charms and everything she could get her hands on since she was a second year. She knew she was good but that wasn’t the point. She had done it because she found fun at learning the obscure spells and everything that came with it. She had simply deepended her understanding of magic. She had had no friends that would have distracted her. Her need to know had prevented anything that could be an obstacle in her quest to understand and feel magic.  
She had knowledge that she could use in every aspect on both sides. She never planned on doing that but if the times came and she couldn’t simply stay in the background she would stand on the battlefield for her very own precious self. She would fight for her beliefs on the sight that would help her come along to those goals she had. And she knew that both sides of the war would start recruiting. Both sides needed an army. It was needed.  
To start a war you needed an army. You needed many chess pieces the more good ones the better. But you needed the small and less effective pawns as well. You needed loads of them. They were effective in huge groups if they were under a stern command. And who were the ones most drawn to join a war in a promise of greatness or whatever? Right, Children.  
They would start to recruit everybody they could get their hands on. They would go out of their way to recruit the powerful or skilled ones, even if it were children with these powers, magic was the great equalizer in this point. Knowledge was powerful as well, experienced fighters often won over the ones without but raw magical power could equalize almost everything.  
Magic the great equalizer indeed.

“I am talking, of course, about Harry Potter.” She didn’t turn around to look the Gryffindor boy.  
She didn’t even notice the words before it was too late and everybody looked to the podium again.  
“He risked his own life to return Cedric’s body to Hogwarts. He showed, in every respect, the sort of bravery that few wizards have ever shown in facing Lord Voldemort, and for this, I honour him.” Dumbledores words drifted towards her. As if in trance the school stood up and raised their goblets to him. Potter looked uncomfortable as if he didn’t want this kind of attention. She supposed he really was uncomfortable. He never really liked it that much as far as she could tell. Even if her classmates said different. His whole being screamed to be let alone, he seemed like a doe in the harsh light of the approaching truck. Jet he watched the students body intensive with his almost shocking green eyes. He seemed to note the ones who didn’t stand up at the headmasters words, most ones of the Slytherins. Possibly to tell old Dumbleodre who had different ideas. He was firmly under Dumbledores’ thumb as almost every child of the light families.  
She wanted to shake her head. Even the muggle-raised Potter didn’t even doubt Dumbledore. He ate right out of his hand. Pitiful, didn’t everyone in the muggle world learned about the manipulations of the leaders. Did they all forget, that they needed to prove the information which was given them?  
Listen to the opposite side and if you could, prove that your side was right? Did they all think magic world was a little fairytale without a person who would do harm? It really was a pity. All of them seemed to think he was some kind of god. Hell couldn’t they see it? He turned Cedric funeral eulogy into a full blown speech for his side of the war. Well maybe not full blown, rather like subtle signs, words who seemed to turn the hall against the other side.

“Every guest in this Hall,” said Dumbledore, and his eyes lingered upon the Durmstrang students, “will be welcomed back here at any time, should they wish to come. I say to you all, once again – in the light of Lord Voldemort’s return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” Trust… such a notably word. Yes trust… with trust and friendship we can be equal to the destruction and death caused by the others. In what fairytale do they live? Is this the same world or is it another? She could certainly see the disbelieving looks from some of her classmates. Further down the table she could hear a heartbreaking sob. Cho Chang was the one who let it go. Mary felt pity for her but deep down she knew she couldn’t relate. It had been a month and a few crushed days since it happened. Yes it was sad. Yes it was shocking. But what had she done since? Nothing but sobbing. The badgers planned revenge, close friends of Cedric researched the death of him. They searched for reasons. But Chang? She cried.  
If it had been one of her friends she would have been crushed, yes but after 2weeks or so she would have vowed revenge for them and started planning. But no? Chang simply cried. Not her business. She herself had vowed that she wouldn’t get involved. She wouldn’t show the world her best cards she had. Not for this.

“Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.” There it was. 90% of Cedrics funeral eulogy had been a speech for the so called light side. It was cold hearted. In this speech the point of Dumbledore being just a kind headmaster was proven wrong. Just in this little speech. Of course he never said that they should fight, no. But he suggested his option as the best one as the right one. The one where everything should be solved with love.  
And if they used violence they should do it against Voldemort.

It was bullshit. She couldn’t think of anything that was more accurate. No… How would she live through this mess? Both sides had done terrible things. Both sides futures weren’t the best ones. Not her business she reminded herself. This situation was horrible. But again she wouldn’t get into this mess not if she had a say in this. It was frustrating but it would bring her to her goal. Her own survival.  
Yes she would live through this. She would. And if she didn’t she would take down as many of whom that had destroyed her idle life. 

She was torn from her musings as everyone stood up. The flow of the people dragged her out of the hall. She tagged along with her classmates in blue till they reached their tower.


	2. Exercitatio

...physical fitness is the key to stabilize….  
“What are you reading Winston?”  
Mary dragged her gaze up to meet the slightly curious eyes of Padma Patil, one of the girls she shared the dorm with.  
“Probably some kind of weird experiment again” Anthonin grumbled to himself. Her gaze flowed to him lazily, the only one in the compartment she could really claim to have a relationship with. She had helped him in some of his classes and they always teamed up in potions and had a general friendly alliance. For those times she helped him in his classes she had gained smaller or bigger favours from him. He wanted to be a healer and had neglected some of his other studies in favour of getting a headstart in healing spells and everything related to healing. This could come in handy for her at a later date when not if her experiments with new techniques and magic went wrong.

“Just some theories of the importance of physical fitness on the stabilization of magic..” She replied to Patil. The witch threw her a teasing look “Ah, well that wouldn’t matter for you, would it now? You despise sports” She drawled.  
Mary cringed. She hated sports or really any exercise with all her might. Wizarding sports were exhausting and often pointless. Quidditch was an unbalanced game that was extremely dangerous.  
It was a game high up in the air played on brooms! She feared heights and in that condition she hated flying even more. She had zero control over these blasted brooms. Her first and last flying lesson at Hogwarts in her first year had ended with a broken broom and many bruised parts of her body. It had been bloody embarrassing. She felt her blood rushing to her cheeks. She just wasn’t born to fly or for any sport at all at least not those she came across till now.  
And her classmates just couldn’t let it go.  
“Obviously” She said a small frown marking her face.   
She forced herself to focus on the book in her lap.

A small pause followed. “Do you think Potter said the truth?”Terry Boot asked nervously. “I think he did. He wouldn’t have the guts to kill Cedric” Michael Corner said. “Of course not!” “But he could have been hallucinating or gone into shock when he saw Cedrics’ body” “That could be it! I’ve heard of it before! The mind does that to itself when one has witnessed something too gruesome to be processed. It shields itself from the brutal reality to remain sane!” “Doesn’t the mind simply shuts it out? Like you can’t remember what happened?” “I am pretty sure it has to do with the lasting changes in certain brain areas that can be associated with traumatic stress. It can cause lasting memory loss and other damages” Anthonin corrected. After all it was his chosen field of magic.  
“But I do think something must be true about it, after all a mind often protects itself with what it thinks reasonable and not some other horror story to cover the more gruesome.”

“You know who can’t be back! He has been gone for thirteen years now! Thirteen years where not even hint of him has been seen!” Patil threw in.  
“Well but they never did find a body or a wand at that something must have happened!” Mandy Brocklehurst argued.  
The indie witch threw her an annoyed glare. “Well yeah he died duh”   
“And what if he didn’t? What would happen if he really came back?” “Probably a war” Mary offered.   
“A war which would last on the shoulders of an attention seeking whore!” Isobel MacDougal spat. “Is he really though?” Lisa Turpin asked with doubt in her voice.   
Mary tuned them out. Turpin and MacDougal were getting to one of their No! Yes! No! Arguments again. It was a pity that she wouldn’t gain any valuable information in the next hour. And when that hour ended they would already be in London. Where she would leave the train and see her wonderful family again.   
Well her wonderful little ickle baby brother William, she hadn’t seen in over a year.  
William and her had decided that it would be better to stay as long and far away from their parents as possible meaning that they would stay in their respective schools over the holidays rather than go home.  
Ever since the summer before her second year this had been the rule for both siblings of the Winston clan.   
In the summer of 1993 her brother should have gotten his Hogwarts letter. But it never arrived. It was clear that he was a squip, a wizard without magic. Her parents had been foreseen it in his lack of accidental magic and wanted to disown him and kick him out into the streets because no “upholding noble house” would accept and tolerate a squip in their family.  
Mary had been livid as her little baby brother burst crying in her room 2 days before she should leave to hogwarts to her second year. He had overheard their parents plans and panicked. He seemed so lost and broken that Marys heart seemed to break. From that moment on she hated her old fashioned pureblood mother and her back-boneless father. What right had they to take away everything from little Will? Will who just discovered that he would never be able to join the wizarding world in the fullest. That he would always be looked down upon for his lack of magic. That his dreams of going to hogwarts were shattered. Mary had not, could not accept that he would lose his family name and her as well.   
It had been her brother and her against her parents.  
The fight had been a nasty one. From insults to threats to promises of pain. Her parents had ignored every argument every plea from their lips till Marry made threats of her own. Every child of a noble house be it ancient or minor had lessons in etiquette, common knowledge, arts, dancing, languages and “the way of words” from a young age. Most of it did not stuck with most children but with Marry it had. It was the first time she used this knowledge to gain power over others.

She had stopped to protest and simply said  
“Mother, then I will leave as well.”.

That was a valid threat against her parents. Her parents were too old to get another child and that meant with her gone they had no heir. Her parents couldn’t risk that, they were too proud to admit that they had driven both children away to get an adoption. 

And their pride in the Winston name was too strong to give it up to another family.

Hence their agreement that she would remain as heir, so William would remain part of house Winston and would get his muggle education up to university paid.  
Her parents had shown William their cold shoulder ever since, not that he paid them any attention anymore. He had been way to busy to catch up in his muggle education then to get into the prestigious school Lichtenstein in Germany. Lichtenstein was a school for squips, muggleborns and halfbloods (mostly those that did not get into Durmstrang). It was a school for magical and muggle education.   
After she came home in the summer before her third year her little Will had gained confidence and wits.  
He had gained friends he could relate to after he got over his cultural shock. He had thrived in the environment and as far as she could tell through the letters she had received last year had gained a rebellious streak. Something along the lines of “you will love the weed over here when you visit this summer” had stuck in her head but she couldn’t for the live of her think of anything that would make weeds interesting. 

But she would see it in two days when she visited her brother in Germany.

The train slowed down. They had reached London. As they rounded the corner she saw the families standing on the platform waiting for their children.   
Live came into every apartment on the train. Students dragged their trunks out of their storage above their heads put their cats in their arms and shoved their remaining sweets in their pockets.

Walking out of the train with the masses Mary pulled her feather-light trunk over to her parents, Bellona and Everard Winston. Her mother stood tall, her cool eyes surveying the crowd. Her father next to her looking around as well, his shoulders tense.  
“Hello mother, father.” Mary offers coolly.  
“Mary, you have grown” Bellona Winston offered. “I have noticed.” Marry answered stiffly.  
“Well lets get home.” Her father threw in before an argument could start about her rude behaviour.

Her mother put her hand on her shoulder and in an instance she could feel the familiar gruesome feeling of side along-apparition.


	3. Domi

Right before the coast of Cornwall in the south-west of the united kingdom a small island with rocky ground existed. On the island rows upon rows of apple trees swayed in the wind.   
Behind the trees a small manor could be seen.   
The white stones stood out stark against the grey rocks and green grass on the island.   
With a low ‘pop’ two figures appeared on lawn in front of the manor. A third figure followed shortly after.   
The girl stepped swiftly out of the embrace of the witch and started to walk towards the house.   
Bellona Winston threw her husband a grim smile full of determination and sped her steps up to match her daughters.

Mary glanced up through her lashes to her mother as she unlocked the family wards of their manor. She had felt the gaze of her mother on her herself all the way up the house. ‘I do wonder what she’s up to...’ Marry thought. ‘Probably trying to convince me not to visit dear Will in Germany, since it is not proper for a future Lady and heir prominent to a house’ The teenager rolled her eyes as if she had a chance to convince her not to see Will. What a ridiculous thought.

The heavy wooden doors swung open and revealed a familiar light themed entrance-hall.   
“Mary love, please fresh yourself up a bid. Dinner is in an hour.” Her father led out. “Twindle!” her mother bellowed. And the family house-elf showed up with a plop.   
“Deposit Marys’ trunk in her room and start with dinner. We wish to be served in an hour in the small dining room.”  
“Twindle will take Miss Marys’ trunk up to her room and start the food right away” The small creature nodded with such enthusiasm that her big ears smacked against her own head.   
“I will go to my room then, I shall see you in an hour.”  
She went up the flight of stairs, sweeped through the corridor and opened the 3rd door on the left.  
With few steps she crossed the distance to the bed and all but threw herself onto it.  
‘What a waste of time’ She grimaced. She liked her home well enough but without Will here to roam through the rows upon rows of trees till you got to the cliffs and with the cliffs the small creek it just wasn’t the same.  
Her parents just didn’t do that anymore. At the very least now, where the tension over all was at an all time high. The Winston family had given up their main manor in the first war. It was on lock-down since most of the family went into the exile when it was clear that they couldn’t stay neutral anymore.   
Her parents, the main branch of House Winston since her fathers parents died moved to an unassuming island in front of the coast of Perranuthnoe.   
It was a little island under many ancient protections. It was also the origin of the Winston apples.  
Since then they had farms all over the world.  
The island was save from sources outside of the wards, except the weather.  
Sighing she stood up from the bed. A quick flick of her wand showed her that it had been 20minutes since she went up stairs. ‘Time to get at least presentable.’ She went over to her closed and pulled out a casual everyday-robe, some slacks and a plain white turtle-neck.   
The witch turned to the bathroom, which was located on the left side of her closet.  
The shower turned on after she liberated herself of her clothes and pushed a little bid of magic into a pad on the side of the shower. The pad then recognized her as the user and automatically sustained her favourite temperature and water pressure till she vocalized a different setting.  
Every respecting wizard family had them. 

Fifteen minutes later Mary stepped out of the bathroom. Seeing her favourite fluffy socks on her bed made her smile. Twindle had always looked out for the Winston siblings. Of course the floor was warm with the warming runes carved into the floors but a good pair of thick fluffy socks never hurt.

She hobbled over to her desk while she pulled the socks on. After all she had a summer schedule to do if she wanted to pull through. She had a reason to try the more daring and iconic spells now. But to try them she needed balance, and all the clues to gain it pointed to a healthy exercised body. Which could only be achieved through sport, lots of sports if she wanted to be fit by September.

‘Well maybe there was a way to cheat it?’She doubted it, else everybody would have a six-pack.   
‘The hope dies last.’ She turned her doubtful look onto the book she had started reading on the train, but pulled it over nonetheless. 

Balance of the mind is important as well. It can be achieved through mediation, sport, art and many other things. The clear state of mind is essential in performing magic. The will must be there but you can’t let yourself be dominated by the emotions.   
‘Well that is not quite true, is it? The other books said for more powerful spells you sometimes needed to be dominated by your feelings. The need to get it to work, the will powered by emotions so high that failure cannot even by considered.’  
If wizards or witches let the emotions take the better of them, the spells get out of control. Magic acts on the feelings of them, takes them over to help them. The stronger the emotions the stronger the spells. As example if the wizards or witches want to make something float too badly, it wont float but be whisked up in the air, most times so fast that it smashes on the ceiling or a building.  
If they want to help someone who is freezing to death and they let their feelings get the better of them they will end up setting the one they are trying to help on fire. In most cases it won’t even matter if they said an incantation or not. It will simply happen because the need was there.  
‘Oh….that certainly could cause negative effects… well… she had never thought about this perspective.’

“Miss Mary, dinner is due.”   
“Thank you Twindle.” She put her book on the desk next to her stood up and smiled to the little elf.  
“And thanks for the socks” she added as an afterthought as she made her way out of her room. 

Opening the doors to the small dining room she saw her parents already seated and immersed in a deep conservation.   
Walking over to her stool on the left side of her mother she led her eyes linger on the part of the island that was visible from the grant window directly behind the table.  
The wind picked up in its pace and was practically shoving everything around while howling out loud. ‘Completely chaotic yet in control of everything.’  
“Mary, do sit. The food is ready and gets cold otherwise.”  
“Yes mother.”

The moment Mary sat down, her plate filled with Lasagne, her favourite dish since she was introduced to it when she was five, as they visited her mothers parents in Italy.  
Bellonnas’ family site, the house Guinigi, the Lords of Lucca, was originally from Italy but had roots all over the world. The family groomed their power with the help of marriage politics.   
She herself had family all over the world, most of them under different last names but not all.  
She had close family in the United kingdom, Italy, Russia, United States, Japan and Germany. The later were her uncle and aunt from the house van Rey and formerly her aunts house Guinigi. She would stay with them in a few days, then hopefully in Lichtenstein with her brother and his friends.  
“How was school Mary? Made new friends? Did a last minute courting occurred?”  
“It was quite good. We learned a lot.” ‘Well I learned a lot. Certainly not in the social life but the academically one.’ “And no, no new friends. A few allies and friendly acquaintances. My friendship with Anthony Goldstein is prospering. And I had a few … interesting conservations with Luna Lovegood.” ‘They were actually some of the most helpful and enlightening discussions I ever had.’ She thought with a light smile on her face. ‘Sure Luna was weird in some ways but she was also a genius I could relate to a bit. Luna was an outsider, even more than I was. It was a bit sad that their tentative friendship started with me finding her shoe and bringing it back to her. They had talked briefly not more than a few words at first but after more of these incidents I helped Luna to keep her things moderately safe from others.’  
“And no such things as … soon to be consorts?” “No, no offers from others and no interest from my side” ‘Who could offer me more than the adrenaline and satisfaction I get from mastering a spell far above the grasp of my peer group? Who could give me the fascinating results of spell-experiments, the kicks out of the forbidden? Certainly no boy from my school. The school itself was a gossip-nest not more or less.’ She thought bitterly.   
‘It had been quite a time since I had feelings for a boy that could even remotely be described as love or a crush.’

“You will find the right one eventually.” Mary blinked. That was certainly not the reaction she had thought her mother would offer. ‘It was nice this acceptance, this tolerance. But also suspicious. Where was the whole you must find someone, you must continue the family line part? It had been the prime theme of the conservations with mother before the school-year.  
‘Well everybody can change their mind, can’t they?’   
“How was the Winter Ball? With whom were you there?” ‘Or not.’ A strained smile was offered to her mother. “I went with Anthony.” ‘Can’t bloody tell her that Luna, Anthony and I went together. That would ruin her hopeful mood’  
“Did you dance a lot?” “Yes, it was quite fun.” ‘Never mind I actually danced with Luna most of the time and Anthony snogged Blaise Zabini.’ 

“Well do you like Anthony?” “Yes…?” “Should I arrange a meeting with his family? Should we go to the same balls?” “No … uhm ... mother I am sorry but you know as well as I know it, that I won’t be there this summer.” “Silly me, I totally forgot it! I apologize. But are you sure you don’t want to spent time with him this summer? I am sure William would understand, if you chose to stay here by your new and first love interest.” Grinding her teeth, Mary bit out: “I am quite sure that Will..iam would understand it but I do think everything is already planned. Furthermore Anthony is not my love interest… just yet… so it would be more beneficial if I make allies in Germany and further my German. As of yet I hadn’t had a chance to really improve it and I am quite sure that my pronunciation is quite off.” ‘Forgot it my arse. If she forgot it I am the queen of England now.’ She tensed as her mother laid a hand upon her own. Mary glanced down on their joint hands, she felt herself frown and as quick as she could pulled an emotionless mask on. As her eyes made contact with her mothers she saw a flicker of annoyance in them before it was gone. “You should eat. You won’t get true Italian lasagne in Germany.” 

Slowly Bellonna released her daughters hand out of hers and she turned to her husband; “Do you think we could make room to visit my family in Russia this summer? Bacchus asked if we would join him there for a few days. To make sure our family would be on the same site in the arriving conflict.” Bellonna watched the reactions out of the corner of her eye to that piece of information. Her husband almost choked on his food where as Mary just stiffened a bit and leaned in closer, giving away her interest in the topic.”Of course my love. Not this week I fear I am quite busy with the ministry and all of that. But the week after that … yes … then we can go visit good old Bacchus.”   
“Where do we stand in this upcoming conflict, Mother? Father?” Mary tried to keep her curiosity out of her voice but she doubted it worked by the smug look in her mothers eyes.  
“Neutral with the leanings to one side.” “Which side?” Now she definitely sounded desperate to know.  
“We will see. It isn’t becoming to talk about this over dinner. I apologize for bringing the topic up.”  
“No deal mother.” “It is ‘No problem’, Mary dear. Watch your language.”  
“Of course mother.”  
The family of three continued to eat in silence till the desert ended.  
“Good night, mother. Good night father. I am going to bed.”  
“Sleep well Mary.”


End file.
